‘But, Dad, he saved my life. Couldn’t we at least try? He wouldn’t be too much trouble—’
‘Yes, he would, son. Don’t you think I’d love to say yes? But I can’t. Maybe he could go into a hospital for the war wounded and we could visit him?’
‘He’d hate that. Please, Dad—’
‘I’m sorry, son, but the answer is no.’
‘But I’ve already told him that he can live with us.’
‘Then you’ll just have to untell him.’
‘Couldn’t we at least try, Dad. Please. For me?’
‘No, Steve. He saved your life and I’ll always be grateful for that, but he’d be too much of a burden.’
‘A burden?’ Steve whispered.
‘I’m sorry, Steve.’
‘So am I.’
‘Come on, son. Let’s not argue. I haven’t spoken to you in almost six months. Tell me all about—’
‘I can’t, Dad. My time’s up now.’
‘Already?’
‘ ’Fraid so. I’ll see you soon. Bye, Dad.’
‘I’m going to give you such a homecoming. And, Steve, I’m sorry about Dean, but you do understand—’
‘I understand, Dad. Bye.’
‘Bye, son. See you soon.’
Steve switched off the phone. He stared up at the peeling, dingy grey paint on the ceiling, slow tears trickling down his otherwise expressionless face.
‘Mr Walker, it’s Dean Sondergard here.’
‘Dean? Well, hello, Dean. How are you?’
‘I’m all right, Mr Walker.’ Dean studied the image of Steve’s father on the phone. He was just as Dean remembered, his hair grey at the temples but jet everywhere else. A neat, trim moustache and his skin the colour of oak, his body as sturdy as oak. And smiling eyes. A man you instinctively trusted. Solid. Dependable. Only he was frowning now.
‘Why, Dean, Steve told me that you’d lost an arm and your legs. Have the charges been dropped? Have you received replacements after all?’
Dean turned away from the screen, his lips a tight, bitter line. He was going home but it didn’t matter what the politicians and the diplomats said, the war would never be over … not for people like him. Or the man on the screen before him.
‘Congratulations! Steve must be so pleased for you,’ Mr Walker continued.
Dean turned back to the screen, staring at Mr Walker’s broad grin. ‘Mr Walker, please …’ A moment to think, then he took a deep breath. ‘Mr Walker, please prepare yourself. I … I have some bad news.’
‘Steve …’ Mr Walker said immediately. ‘What’s wrong? Has something happened to my son?’
‘Mr Walker, I don’t know how to say this. Steve … Steve committed suicide this morning. I … I’m so, so sorry.’
The two men stared at each other.
‘Steve …?’ Mr Walker whispered. ‘He didn’t … he wouldn’t … You’re wrong.’
‘Please, Mr Walker. I’m afraid it’s true …’
‘But why? I don’t understand. Why would he do such a thing? Why?’ Mr Walker seemed to shrink into himself, to diminish right before Dean’s eyes.
‘Mr Walker, Steve spoke to you last night. Did you see him?’
‘What …?’ Mr Walker shook his head, slowly, utterly bewildered now, utterly lost. ‘I … I couldn’t … I never saw him yesterday. He said the web-cam wasn’t working …’
‘I see. And what did you talk about?’
Mr Walker’s eyes were dazed and glazed with pain. ‘Where’s Steve?’
‘Mr Walker, what did you talk about?’
Mr Walker slowly shook his head. ‘You. He talked about you. He wanted you to stay with us.’
‘Me?’ Dean said, stunned.
‘He told me that you’d lost an arm and both legs …’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Mr Walker pleaded. ‘Where’s my son? I want to see my son.’
‘Steve left you a letter,’ said Dean. ‘May I read it to you?’
Mr Walker nodded slowly. Dean removed the letter from his overall pocket. The words, like shards of glass, pierced his tongue and sliced at his vocal cords. He tried to swallow, but it hurt. It hurt so much.
‘Sorry, Dad. I love you. You’ve explained everything to me very carefully and I think this is the best solution for everyone. Steve.’
‘What does that mean?’ Mr Walker interrupted. ‘Steve can’t be dead. I don’t believe it.’
‘Mr Walker, I’m not supposed to do this, but I’ll use my security clearance on this computer to show you Steve. He’s … he’s in the morgue. I can transmit the image to you.’
Dean looked away from Mr Walker’s eyes. Eyes filled with such sorrow, such pain. It was too much, too searing, like looking at the sun. Dean keyed his password and the necessary commands into the console beside the web-cam and the morgue appeared without warning, filled to overflowing with row upon row of transparent body capsules. Hermetically sealed body containers to stop infection spreading and to preserve the bodies for as long as possible before they were brought home. Dean knew he’d catch hell from his commander for this severe breach of military protocol, but he didn’t care. He owed Steve that much. Dean began to key in the commands to home in on one particular capsule.
‘Mr Walker, did Steve tell you what happened when we were shot down?’
‘Yes, he told me how you saved his life.’
‘I didn’t save his life, Mr Walker,’ said Dean quietly. ‘It was the other way round. He came back for me …’
A new image filled the screen now. There, in his capsule, lay Major Steve Walker, with no legs and only one arm and a badly scarred, almost unrecognizable face.
4
‘NO!’
The cry was wrenched from me at the sight of Steve’s mutilated body. A cry that yanked me out of my vision of Steve and back onto the train. Gasps sought to fill my empty lungs. I scrutinized Steve, dissecting him with my eyes. Two legs. Two arms. And his chest was moving up and down, slowly but steadily. What had just happened?
Did I pass out? Was that it? Seeing Steve like that … watching like some fly on the wall as his life shattered … What had happened to Steve was unthinkable, unbearable. And yet it had been a respite from my own situation, my own problems. Guilt like acid ate at my insides for even admitting that to myself, but it was true. How had I done it? How had I stopped being me and fallen into Steve’s life instead? How was that even possible? I looked down at my hands. They were still shaking.
Look at me! So sure that my dream of Steve was true, was real. ’Cause that’s what it had to be – a dream. But where had all that come from? I’d had my fair share of nightmares, especially over the past year, but nothing like the one I’d just experienced. Nothing so vivid, seen from the point of view of someone else entirely. Looking around, I found it alarming that I had trouble convincing myself that the train was reality and my hallucination about Steve had been just that – an illusion, nothing of substance.
Think of something else, Kyle. Don’t look at Steve, don’t think about him. Just think of something else. Turn away and let your thoughts pull you away to somewhere safer …
Dad was about to put me in check. I was about to let him. I watched as he scrutinized the board, trying to anticipate my next move. He hadn’t looked at or spoken to me in almost an hour. Maybe that’s why Dad loved chess so much – you didn’t have to converse with your opponent or even look them in the eye.
‘Dad, when’s Mum coming home?’
Dad’s hand slowed on its way to his bishop. ‘I don’t know, Kyle. But soon.’
‘How soon?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘How d’you know she’s coming home at all then?’ I couldn’t help asking.
‘ ’Cause it’s your mum,’ said Dad, as if that explained everything.
‘She’s been gone two weeks already,’ I pointed out.
‘She’ll be home. You just wait and see.’ Dad’s attention turned
emphatically back to the chessboard. Conversation was over. For Dad, Mum coming home was as obvious, as guaranteed as the sun rising each morning. I watched as he moved his bishop.
‘Check!’ he said triumphantly.
It was a bad move, but the grin pasted on Dad’s face said he needed to win more than I did.
‘Dad, why don’t you just say you’re sorry?’ I asked.
‘Sorry for what?’ Dad’s tone veered somewhere between surprise and indignation.
‘Maybe if you said sorry, Mum would come home,’ I ventured.
‘Sorry for what?’ Dad repeated.
And the thing is, he really didn’t know.
I moved my rook in between Dad’s bishop and my king. Dad didn’t even think about what he was doing – he pounced on my rook with his knight and swept it off the board with a flourish. Now that his knight was between his bishop and my king, my king was safe. I moved my queen.
‘Checkmate, Dad,’ I said.
‘What?’
I pointed to my queen and my other rook. ‘Checkmate.’
Dad’s face swooped down hawk-like over the board as he studied it. When he finally sat back, his expression changed like he had an unholy smell beneath his nostrils. I regarded him. Dad turned his thoughts outwards, using them like an iron to smooth out the creases between his eyebrows and around his mouth. What was it going to be? ‘Kyle, I let you win,’ or perhaps, ‘Kyle, did you cheat?’ or maybe even ‘You only won that ’cause I was having an off day. All those questions about your mum – they put me off.’ But to my surprise, Dad said nothing. We sat watching each other in thorny silence.
‘Well done. That’s the first time you’ve won,’ said Dad, finally dredging up a smile from somewhere beneath his toes.
‘No, Dad,’ I replied quietly. ‘It’s just the first time you’ve lost.’
I didn’t like those thoughts. They weren’t that much safer. Or maybe they were, but that didn’t help, because they were just as painful. I looked up again. The chopper blades were rotating as they should. Things were back to normal – if you could call my current situation normal.
‘Kyle, I’m coming for you …’
There it was again, that faint yet insistent whisper. Where was it coming from? It seemed to be coming from every direction at once. I struggled forward, looking around, but could see no one calling me.
‘Kyle …’ Miss Wells’s thin voice had my whole body whipping round.
‘Miss Wells.’ I was at her side in an instant. ‘Miss Wells, d’you want my help?’
Miss Wells shook her head. Her arm was twisted at an obscene angle beneath her back.
If only I wasn’t so pathetically feeble. I never knew what to do, what to say. I seemed to spend my life fifteen minutes behind everyone I cared about. It should be engraved on my gravestone – TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE. Story of my life.
‘Are you in pain?’ I asked. See! How’s that for inadequate?
‘I’ll live,’ my teacher replied weakly.
‘Miss Wells …?’
‘Kyle, the f-first chance you get, you must get off this train …’
‘I know—’ I began.
Miss Wells unexpectedly grabbed my wrist with her good hand, her blue eyes burning into mine. ‘Promise me you’ll leave us all behind and save yourself if you get the chance.’
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t answer.
‘Promise me,’ she insisted, her fingers biting into my arm.
‘I promise I’ll try,’ I said. I covered Miss Wells’s hand with mine, partly to stop her from breaking my wrist, partly to reassure her that I was here and would help in any way I could.
‘Kyle, where are you …?’
That voice again. That terrible, breathy voice that made my blood run so cold. I’d never really experienced what that phrase meant before, but I knew now. I stared down at Miss Wells. She looked straight at me, as if she knew exactly what I was going through. Exactly. Without warning, they began – the blurred images of my teacher that warned of what was about to happen. Appalled, I tried to pull away, but Miss Wells held onto me like rigor mortis had already set in. OK, sick joke – but that’s what it felt like.
‘Kyle, where are you …?’
Leave me alone … My thoughts were a desperate plea. What were my choices? Face that voice or concentrate on Miss Wells. No choice really. The voice constantly calling me was terrifying. The images of my teacher were getting clearer, like the focus on a camera being adjusted. But could I cope with any more? I could sense what was about to happen. Steve’s dream had been bad enough. I didn’t want to deal with another one. But although these images of Miss Wells were unwanted and unwelcome, they were better than the alternative.
Miss Wells was in some kind of classroom with a number of other adults. A woman wearing a brown suit and a beige scarf stood at the front of the class pointing out something on an interactive whiteboard. The vision came before the sound, but now I could hear what was being said, as if the volume in the room were slowly being turned up. I yanked my hand out of Miss Wells’s grasp, covering my ears. I didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to hear any of it. I closed my eyes and shook my head, trying to shake the image of my teacher out of my head.
But it didn’t budge.
I opened my eyes. ‘Miss Wells, is your first name Rosa?’
Surprise lit her eyes before she nodded. And that’s when I knew for sure that it was happening again.
5
Miss Wells’s Nightmare
‘ROSA, IS THIS course what you expected?’
Rosa turned to Jeanette, the stunning woman seated next to her. ‘Pretty much,’ she whispered back. ‘Why?’
‘It’s not what I expected,’ said Jeanette. ‘I didn’t think it’d be quite so tedious. And reading all that material on Western verses Eastern corporate ethos put me to sleep in under two minutes last night.’
‘Look at it this way, Jeanette,’ said Rosa. ‘Another year and you’ll have your MBA. Then the world will be your oyster.’
‘What I’m looking for is a rich man. I wasn’t born into the “proper” social circle’ – Jeanette’s tone, though mocking, had an edge to it – ‘so this MBA will move me through the proper business circles till I find what I’m looking for.’
Rosa eyebrows almost touched her hairline. It’d never even occurred to her to use her MBA in that fashion. She was doing it to further her education and as a way of introducing the teaching of business administration at her school.
‘But with an MBA, you won’t need a rich man,’ Rosa pointed out. ‘You’ll be able to—’
‘Miss Wells, is there a problem?’ asked the lecturer from the front of the class.
‘No, Mrs Dyer. I’m sorry,’ Rosa said quickly, her cheeks burning. She looked around to find she was the centre of attention, the very last thing she wanted. Even more embarrassing, Tod was looking at her. He smiled sympathetically and winked. Rosa immediately looked away, her cheeks flaming. Groaning, she closed her eyes and mentally berated herself for not smiling back or even acknowledging Tod’s gesture of friendship. What was the matter with her?! Why was it that she could make conversation with any man on the planet as long as she wasn’t attracted to him? She taught boys in a co-ed secondary school, for goodness’ sake! And she’d been known to go toe to toe with some of the toughest pupils in the school. Not for nothing was her nickname ‘Miss Well’ard’! But the moment attraction raised its ugly head, look out! She’d struggle hopelessly to find something to say, while her tongue invariably tied itself into the Gordian knot. Rosa sneaked a look at Tod. She could only see his profile as he’d turned back to face the lecturer. She sighed.
It wasn’t just the MBA course that had Rosa unsettled. She’d fallen in lust with Tod from the first time she saw him. Desire twisted into longing as the term went on. And longing coiled into burning infatuation. She was beginning to fall in love – for all the good it did her.
During the break Rosa sadly regarded her reflection in t
he broken mirror in the ladies’ room.
‘He’d never fall for me,’ she told herself, the truth aloe-bitter in her mouth.
Rosa was short, five feet four in her highest heels, with mousy brown hair and mousy brown eyes. Her face, her height, her body, they were all average. She wasn’t ugly but she was no oil painting either. Strictly average. And Tod was far from being Mr Average. Rosa had watched him, course day after course day, with enough unconscious yearning to know that for a fact.
‘I don’t stand a chance.’ The phrase became her mantra, but each time it entered her head, it passed by her heart to inflict tiny little cuts all over it. And her regrets were like lemon juice dripping relentlessly onto each and every wound.
‘I’ve got nothing going for me,’ Rosa agonized to her reflection in the dress-shop window on her way home that evening. ‘I have no conversation. My skirts and shoes are never too high. My language and my tops are never too low. I shop on Saturdays. I go to church every Sunday. I’m not witty or pretty. Even my boobs are only a thirty-two A. I don’t stand a chance.’ And with that melancholy thought she plodded down the high street, avoiding all further glass-fronted shops.
After a few months something happened to prove to Rosa that infatuation had indeed turned into love. It happened at Tod’s birthday party. They all went to a wine bar. Tod sat next to Rosa and actually had a proper conversation with her for the first time. Even more amazing, Rosa managed to talk back. As jazz music swirled deliciously around them, Tod asked her which films she’d seen recently; which plays she’d enjoyed in the past; what kind of music she listened to when she felt lonely or lively. The major plus which sealed Rosa’s fate was that he listened to her answers! His responses followed on from her replies. Dialogue twisted and turned into stimulating conversation. Rosa only had eyes for Tod as the rest of the group – the rest of the world – had slowly slunk and shrunk away. The music was no more than a pleasant background hum. The voices of those around were no more than underlying noise, almost welcome, like winter rain heard and spied from the comfort of a warm haven.